William Joyce, nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born, Anglo-Irish Fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during World War II.
Background
William Brooke Joyce was born on Herkimer Street in Brooklyn, New York, United States. His father was Michael Francis Joyce (9 December 1866 – 19 February 1941) an Irish Catholic from a family of farmers in Ballinrobe, County Mayo, who had taken United States citizenship on 25 October 1894. His mother was Gertrude Emily Brooke, who although born in Shaw and Crompton, Lancashire, England, was from a well-off Anglican Anglo-Irish family of medical practitioners associated with County Roscommon. A few years after William's birth, the family returned to Salthill, Galway, permanently.
Education
Joyce attended St Ignatius College, a Jesuit school in Galway (from 1915–1921). Joyce's mother was strongly Anglocentric and despite tensions with her father for marrying a Catholic, remained staunchly Protestant and Unionist herself, hostile to Irish nationalism. Joyce's father bought up houses and rented some to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).
It was during the Irish War for Independence, that Joyce had his first taste in politics, he was recruited by Capt. Patrick William Keating as a courier for British Army intelligence in Galway, who were then fighting against the Irish Republican Army. He was known to have hung around with Black and Tans at Lenaboy Castle, which reportedly resulted in the Irish Republican Army dispatching a volunteer, Michael Molloy, to murder Joyce on his way home from school in December 1921, although minors were normally excluded from being executed by the IRA, usually being expelled or ostracised. Joyce reputedly survived only because his father had moved his family to another house on a different route. Capt. Keating arranged for William Joyce to be mustered into the Worcester Regiment soon after, taking him out of the dangerous situation in Ireland to Norton Barracks. A few months later he was discharged when it was found out he was underage.
When the British Prime Minister Lloyd George, announced the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which resulted in the creation of the Irish State, the Joyce family left Ireland for England, fearing nationalist retribution. Joyce was 15 years old at the time and, following a short stint in the army - where he was discharged for being underage and a short stint at Surrey Polytechnic, he applied to Birkbeck College, at the University of London. During his studies he developed a passionate interest in fascism, joining the British Fascisti Ltd. in 1923, an offshoot of the Italian Fascist movement. He became infamous at the university for his anti-Semitic view, and was often heckled at political meetings at a time when interest in politics was high among university students.
Never shy to using his fists, Joyce became involved in a fracas with an opposing left-wing mob at a Conservative Party meeting in 1924, and received a deep razor slash that ran across his right cheek, leaving a permanent scar. Joyce was convinced that his assailant was a "Jewish Communist" and the injury made his anti-Semitic stance even more implacable.
Career
William Joyce left the British Fascisti in 1925, disillusioned with their lack of political conviction, and he joined the Conservative Party. He decided on a full-time academic career, but was galvanized, in October 1932, by the arrival on the political scene of Oswald Mosley, who launched the British Union of Fascists, a party that Joyce quickly joined, dropping his academic career overnight to become an impassioned party speaker. When the BUF performed disastrously in the polls, Mosley dismissed Joyce as a salaried party member, and Joyce left to form his own political party, the National Socialist League. Over the next two years the small but vocal party was involved in a number of skirmishes, which resulted in court appearances on assault charges, although Joyce was never convicted. He made no secret of his support for Adolf Hitler, and had contact with suspected German agents within the U.K.
Given his political allegiance, Joyce's correspondence was subjected to regular interception by the British Secret Service, and in July 1939 a letter to a suspected German spy revealed that he intended to travel to Germany, given the imminence of war. The British security services, MI5, decided that he would be detained as soon as war was declared. In August 1939, in the days immediately prior to the declaration of war, Joyce dissolved the National Socialist League, and renewed his British passport for another year.
William Joyce became the most important propaganda broadcaster in Germany at the time, and both he and his wife were granted naturalized German citizenship on September 26, 1940. With almost as many listeners as the BBC, he gained an almost mythical status: there were claims that he could forecast bomb targets, and that he knew intimate details about target sites. In reality, because of reporting restrictions placed on the BBC by the War Office, he could sometimes scoop the official stories by a few hours, releasing details before they could be broadcast officially, but this was the extent of his ability.
On May 28, 1945, Joyce was captured by British forces near the German-Danish border, in the town of Flensburg. Apparently Joyce's accent had raised suspicions, and when he went to retrieve his forged identification papers from his pocket, to prove he wasn't Joyce, he was thought to be reaching for a pistol, and was shot in the leg by an interpreter attached to the British forces, named Lieutenant Perry. After recovering for a fortnight in Lueneberg Military Hospital, Joyce was transported back to the U.K on June 16, 1945.
His capture was seen as a significant coup for the authorities and, conveniently, the day before Joyce's arrival, the Treason Act 1945 had been granted Royal Assent by King George VI, enabling Joyce to be charged with three counts of high treason. The original intention of the authorities was to try Joyce for treason immediately, but when his complicated nationality issues came to light, the court case was forced back until September. On September 27, 1945, Joyce's lawyers gave notice of appeal, on the grounds that the Judge had ruled incorrectly that he could be expected to owe allegiance to the Crown during his time in Germany. The appeal was heard on October 30 and dismissed on November 7. Due to the important questions of law involved in the case, the Attorney General granted permission for the Joyce case to be heard before the House of Lords; the highest British court, which occurred between December 10 and 13. The Lords also dismissed the appeal, on a vote of 3 to 1, on December 18, 1945. All routes of appeal now exhausted, Joyce went to his death unrepentant and defiant saying, "In death as in life, I defy the Jews who caused this last war, and I defy the powers of darkness which they represent," according to the BBC.
He was hanged at Wandsworth Prison at 9 a.m. on January 3, 1946, the last person in British history to be hanged for treason.
Politics
In 1934 was an important year for Joyce. Thanks to his impassioned oratory, he progressed through the BUF party ranks until he was promoted to the position of Director of Propaganda. Also in that year, on July 4, Joyce set in motion a chain of events that would prove his eventual undoing, he falsely claimed to be a British citizen, and obtained a British passport.
Despite his successful oratory, his appetite for brawling and willingness to confront anti-fascist agitators caused Mosley embarrassment, and he was forced to distance himself further from Joyce when his anti-Semitic rhetoric threatened to override the party's political direction. Although Mosley used anti-Semitic sentiment as a political tool when it was expedient, he never shared Joyce's virulent hatred of Jews, which seemed to increase with every passing year.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
According to one of Joyce's biographers, Nigel Farndale, Joyce developed a relationship with an intelligence division within MI5, known as section B5(b), which was responsible for infiltrating extremist political groups, during his time in England. Given his close connections to Ireland, it seems plausible that he might have been very valuable in this regard, and Farndale claims to have discovered documents, recently released under freedom of information legislation, backing up this connection.
Connections
Joyce had two daughters by his first wife, Hazel, who went on to marry Oswald Mosley's bodyguard, Eric Piercey. One daughter, Heather Piercey (formerly Iandolo) spoke publicly of her father.